Car lease deals are looking much better for the month of August. The clear winner is an unusual one, indeed. The Chevy Volt is finally making good on the exciting lease offer we were told about last November and wrote about here: Chevy Volt Lease Announcement. Through August 31st, you can lease a Chevy Volt for $350 a month and a $2150 down payment ($2,500 less first month’s payment). This is an LVR (Lease Value Ratio) of just 1.00% and that’s without consideration for gas savings! I’ve never been a huge fan of paying more money for Hybrids since any gas savings is offset by the extra cost of ownership, however a good case can be made for leasing one:

Chevy Volt Lease: Best of Both Worlds?

Leasing hybrids may not make financial sense in every case, but the Chevy Volt lease surely gives us a compelling reason to lease vs buy. Based on it’s $41,000 MSRP alone, the Chevy Volt, even with the $7,500 Federal Government rebate seems a bit on the high side. Leasing a Volt is a whole new ball game. No, you don’t get to keep the $7,500 rebate when you lease a Volt, but you do get a $350.00 payment on a great commuter car that won’t cost you a dime in fuel costs, assuming you drive 35 miles or less between charges. The Chevy Volt uses a standard household electrical receptacle for charging it while it is parked in your garage. For someone like me, who drives less than 35 miles per day, I could drive the Chevy Volt to and from work without ever spending a dime on gas. I am currently spending about $110.00 a month on fuel. Subtract that from the $350.00 lease payment, and my net cost to drive a Volt is just $240.00 a month. That’s a lease payment that measures up to just about any of the best deals out there.

Yet, if you’re really after an economical lease and spend less than $150.00 a month on gas, there are two better choices than the ChevyVolt: The Honda Accord LX and Toyota Camry. With an Average Car Payment of just $233.00 and $236.00 respectively, you’ll save about $6400 over the life of the car lease on a Chevy Volt. Aside from gas mileage savings, is the Chevy Volt such a great car that you’d gladly spend $6400 more to lease it (Or $3200 after gas savings)? I guess you’ll have to look at and test drive a Chevy Volt to make that decision.

The good news is that we have 5 great car lease deals this month which have LVRs under 1.10%:

Chevy Volt: $350.00 per month

Honda Accord Sedan LX: $240.00 per month

Toyota Camry LE: $189.00 Per Month

Honda Accord Coupe LX-S: $270.00 Per Month

Nissan Frontier 4×4: $229.00 Per Month

Keep in mind, the lease payments above are the advertised lease payment and not the average car payment which includes down payment and provides a more realistic idea of what it costs to lease the car. For the full details on these top-5 car lease offers, refer to the chart below.

4 Responses to “August 2011 Car Lease Specials”

So now I’m really confused. Unless I missed something, there has been no change to the leasing formula for the Volt since it was first released. So why it is now, in August of 2011, that it rises to the top of the list – without ever a prior mention – as least so far as I recall? With an LVR of 1.00, it should have been on the top of your list for each of the six months or so I have been reading your site. Also, it you take out the $7,500 tax incentive, and use an adjusted MSRP of $33,500, the LVR is 1.22.

I use my local zip code to locate the offers. While it is true the Chevy Volt lease was announced 6 months ago, it was not available here. And to the best of my knowledge, that lease became available for my Colorado Zip Code dealers for the first time this month. To my knowledge, this is the first month that the Chevy Volt Lease has been offered in Colorado.

The MSRP is fixed and never changes. The $7,500 rebate is figured into the lease payment just like a dealer incentive. While it is certainly debatable whether or not the Volt warrants the high MSRP of $41,000, that is the number that is used to calculate the value of your payment. If you bought the car outright, your cost would be $33,500 after you applied the $7,500 rebate, but the MSRP would remain $41,000. If you think the car’s MSRP is only worth about $33,500, the 1.22% LVR still represents a pretty good value considering the savings in gas.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I am in need of a new vehicle, and I’m really having a hard time finding a good choice. I have been high on the Regal and the Volt, but my issue is that I suppose I would qualify as an active lifestyle type which for me means a dog, skis and a bike, and preferably AWD. I could squeeze the dog into the back of the Volt, and I could put the back seat down in the Regal, but neither choice is ideal. That points me directly to an A4 Avant (I currently drive a 2001 with too many miles to mention) but I don’t ever see any information posted on an Avant lease – only the sedan. Audi has a great CPO program on the ’08’s, but they are tough to find with a manual, and the cost to repair my ’01 has been deadly. I suppose the new Legacy would do, but the front is god awful ugly in my book. GM seems to be hinting at a Regal wagon, which would be a no-brainer for me, assuming the lease is as favorable as the segan. Then again, the new Impreza is probably worth a look. Clearly no option has pushed to the front of the line. Any thoughts?

That’s a tough call. I think the difficulty is that you really need an SUV and SUV’s as a rule, really don’t lease that well. The reason they don’t lease so well is gas. Fuel costs have increased to the point where SUVs don’t hold their value quite as well as they used to. Trade in value is probably the biggest key to getting a great lease. One thing to keep in mind, however: Gas mileage is over-rated. Think of it this way: How much money do you need to save monthly in gas costs to make up for the premium you’ll pay for a hybrid vehicle like the Volt?

There are some excellent cars out there that are thousands of dollars cheaper that will serve their purpose for you. Up until a few months ago, the Toyota RAV4 had the best lease in the world. I took advantage of a well-equipped V6 RAV4 last winter. I get around 20MPG in the city and between 26-30 on the highway. For a V6 with 269HP, that kind of gas mileage is unheard of. I’m very happy with this vehicle, but I just don’t see the same lease offers being advertised.

An Audi would be great if you can get the right deal.. So would a Subaru Outback. Prior to the RAV4, I drove a 2009 Subaru Legacy on a two-year lease. My only regret was that it wasn’t the Outback model with the added cargo room. Subaru’s are very well made. I actually preferred my Subaru to the Toyota and would have leased a new Outback, but the lease rates were not nearly as good. Take a look at the Impreza wagon. I would be leaning towards a Subaru … but that’s just my two cents. Check back next month. You never know what kind of lease deals might show up in September.